Cryptic
by shootingstarcipher
Summary: Just as Dipper starts to think he's slowly descending into madness, Bill decides to make his mind crumble that bit faster, only for his plan to backfire as a result of an unbearable combination of carelessness and enchantment.
1. Prologue: Strange

He woke up every night in a cold sweat, and sometimes in floods of tears as well, for no apparent reason. He wasn't stressed about anything, or upset or scared in any way… just lonely. He wasn't even homesick in spite of having limited contact with his parents for over a fortnight. Besides, it wasn't like he was away from his family. His twin sister was sleeping in the bed next to him and their great uncle was… somewhere.

This night was no different to any of the others.

Suddenly sitting bolt upright, he glanced over at Mabel, who was snoring softly in her sleep. Yellowish moonlight trickled in from the triangular window between the two single beds, illuminating the sullied floorboards and highlighting every crack, every speck of dust and every cobweb within its reach. That included him.

His eyes struggling to adjust to the newfound light, he blinked several times, squinted and swivelled around in his bed to face the wall, turning his back on the sallow moonlight. Frustrated with himself for not being able to sleep through the night despite his exhaustion, he gritted his teeth together and growled inwardly - just quiet enough so that Mabel slept through it.

Determined to get back to sleep, he ignored his ever-intensifying headache and slumped back down in his bed, hiding himself underneath the flea-bitten blanket his great uncle seemed to think would keep him sufficiently warm. (Mabel didn't seem to mind it though, and she had no better luck than him when it came to sleeping arrangements.) He squeezed his eyes tight shut and willed himself to get back to sleep, but he was still awake twenty minutes later. The light from the window was gone, however, vanishing without a trace. It had dissolved into the velvet black sky behind it and darkness poured in, flooding the room in its place, finally allowing Dipper to drift off to sleep again.

That was when everything got strange.

Normally he didn't remember his dreams, but he wasn't sure he would ever forget this one. At first he thought he had sleepwalked into the kitchen and woke up there, but this theory was quickly debunked by the glowing triangular shape hovering in the doorway. It did occur to him later on that considering everything that had happened within the two weeks he and Mabel had been there, glowing 2D shapes with arms and legs wearing top hats and bowties didn't really disprove reality. It probably would have been less disturbing if it had had no facial features at all, let alone just one enormous expressionless eye.

It blinked (or winked) at him once - excruciatingly slowly - before floating into the kitchen with its arms and legs dangling limply from its golden body, and stopping just in front of Dipper. "You look tired," it chuckled slyly, leaning back slightly to get a better look at the human in front of it.

"Yeah, well I _am_ asleep. I'm dreaming," Dipper shot back, feeling as if he should be offended simply by the creature's presence even though it hadn't said anything insulting. "You're in _my_ dream," he added, folding his arms across his chest and scowling. It wasn't in his nature to be so irate, but the torment of his family members continuously making cruel - almost spiteful - jokes at his expense for the last week or so had made him distrust everyone - and every _thing -_ that entered his life, for fear that their supposed kindness was just part of another joke.

"The name's Bill Cipher," the creature smirked, seemingly unfazed by the human's annoyance. Dipper just scowled. "Well, well, isn't someone in a bad mood? I know all about you, Pine Tree. I know all about how they're treating you. But I just want you to know that you're not completely alone. There are others just like us - intelligent, resourceful… _ingenious_ even - but you have to do something for me in order for me to introduce you to them, Pine Tree." Bill stuck out his hand, a blue flame appearing just above it, and his eye seemed to glimmer with anticipation.

He may have sometimes felt completely isolated by his great uncle Stan and his twin sister, but after surviving weeks of living in Gravity Falls and spending almost every day of his time there combating monsters, Dipper had learned not to do anything without consulting the journal that contained information about all of them first. Bill must have known this already, because the flame suddenly extinguished itself and he dropped his hand to his side and narrowed his eye.

"I knew you wouldn't have the guts," he spat in disgust. "But don't think I won't be watching you, Pine Tree. You'll cave in soon enough… and then you'll come crawling back to me."


	2. Shatter

In a way, he wished Mabel had been in the dream with him so she'd know how real it was. He didn't tell her about it straight away the next morning, for fear of being made a mockery of yet again. She knew about the wondrous creatures and the mysteries that resided in Gravity Falls, but she didn't know about Bill. She hadn't met him, so why would she believe him? Neither of them knew anything about him… even Dipper. He'd only met him a few hours ago, and there was still no guarantee Bill Cipher was even real. At least, not until that morning when he consulted the journal.

A dream demon. Bill Cipher was a dream demon, and one that should apparently never be summoned. The journal was never wrong, at least as far as he knew at that point, and so he vowed to himself never to trust him - in fact, to stay as far away from him as possible. The trouble was, how could he stay from someone who was so easily able to get inside his head? He couldn't. The most he could do was hope and pray that Bill hadn't really meant what he'd said about watching him.

Snapping the journal shut, he flung himself out of his chair and ran up the rickety staircase to the attic, where he found Mabel's bed empty even though she'd still been sleeping soundly when he got up and he was sure he hadn't heard her come down stairs afterwards. He called her name a few times, circling the room with the leather journal tucked under his arm as he did so. Frowning when only silence greeted him, he turned and headed towards the door, bringing his journal up to his chest to hug it, as if he were protecting it from something sinister. As he opened the door with a creak, a shadow cast itself over him, causing him to freeze as his blood ran cold. He couldn't even scream. And all the air had been sucked out of his lungs already, so he couldn't even gasp.

"Dipper!" A familiar giggle came from behind him, and he spun around to face his sister, who was squeezing Waddles - a pig she had once won at a fair, a pig that was meant to be kept outside and never allowed into the Mystery Shack - in a warm and loving embrace, a frenzied grin on her face. "I heard someone coming so I hid under the bed in case Grunkle Stan saw us," she explained, the grin never fading and her voice never faltering, as she held Waddles up to show her brother.

Dipper breathed a sigh of relief, finally able to relax now that he knew nothing terrible had happened to his twin. But reality quickly hit him and he decided to hit Mabel back with it. "Mabel, you know Waddles isn't allowed inside. Grunkle Stan will kill you if he finds out about this!"

"I know!" she hissed, willing him to quieten down, though she kept the smile plastered on her face. "That's why I was hiding, you big dummy!" She then went on to explain that even though she'd realised when he'd entered the room that Stan wasn't there, she decided to see how long she could go without being noticed. But then Waddles had run out from under the bed and she'd had no choice but to go after him and reveal herself.

Suddenly remembering the triangular demon that had appeared in his dream the night before, he sat down on the edge of his bed, telling Mabel to stay with him, and flicked through the pages of the journal until he found the page with a drawing of Bill Cipher inked onto it. When he looked up to show her the page, she was already marching off somewhere with Waddles in tow. "You can show me later!" she called back to him. "Grenda's supposed to be here by now!"

Dipper shouted after her and chased her down the stairs, waving the journal at her as they darted around corners and dashed along corridors. By the time they reached the front door, however, Grenda was already there, waiting impatiently outside for her friend. For a moment, Dipper wondered why Candy wasn't there with them. Then he remembered he didn't care and gave up on trying to warn his twin about the supposedly dangerous, malevolent dream demon, deciding he'd simply tell her about it later. It could wait, couldn't it?

* * *

The usually much too-soft mattress suddenly seemed a lot firmer. Hard and rugged, uneven and grassy. Something rocky and rough dug into his back, like a thousand pins were simultaneously puncturing his flesh. The back of his moss green shirt had twisted itself upwards, exposing his skin to the tiny dagger-like weapons below him. With his eyes still closed, he threw one hand across his chest and gripped what he assumed was a mattress, only to realise the second his hand made contact with the prickly surface that the mattress wasn't there, and what he was actually laying on was a pebble-ridden patch of grass in the middle of the forest which the Mystery Shack was confined within.

After opening his eyes - and being momentarily blinded by the unexpected brilliant sunlight which immediately invaded his vision - he pushed himself up from the ground and scrambled to his feet, but was slightly dazed and over-estimated his balance, resulting in him nearly knocking himself over. He snarled at himself, irritated by his own stupidity, but was almost instantly distracted by the throbbing headache that soon ensued. He swore he could feel his heart beat inside his head, and each pulse came with its own agony, each one worse than the one before it.

Taking a deep breath as he tried to clear his mind and steady himself, Dipper scanned his surroundings, taking special care to look out for anything he recognised. He didn't have a clue how he'd ended up there, seeing as he hadn't left the Mystery Shack all day because Mabel and Grenda needed someone to keep an eye out for Grunkle Stan in case he caught them dressing Waddles up in the attic. The last thing he remembered doing was flicking through the journal as he sat with his back against the door to his and Mabel's room in attempt to stop Stan from barging in on them when they least expected it. He remembered how his eyes kept naturally gravitating back to the page on Bill Cipher, and how he glanced up at his sister every time his eyes landed on the black and white drawing of the triangular demon.

He wondered what time it was. With no watch to tell him the precise time, he had no choice but to rely on the sun's movements and judging by the blaring light and searing heat, it must have been early afternoon - just after midday, perhaps. And he couldn't remember anything after around 9 o'clock that morning. Sighing heavily, he sat himself down on a rock in the middle of the clearing he'd woken up in and rummaged around in his backpack, trying to find the journal. His fingers latched onto the leather cover and he pulled it out of the bag, but not before he found a selection of sandwiches he didn't remember making or packing and a notepad he'd never seen before. It was small and square with a plain pastel blue cover which had the letter _Z_ printed on it. He definitely didn't own it and he was pretty sure it wasn't Mabel's either.

He flipped over the cover and studied the first page. A note was scrawled onto the top line but none of it made any sense. _These aren't words,_ he mused thoughtfully as he attempted to decipher the message. _This doesn't mean anything._

Taking one of the triangular sandwiches out of the backpack and cramming it down his throat because it was the only thing he'd eaten since breakfast, he shoved the notepad back into the bag and went back to examining his surroundings. Depending on how close he was to the Mystery Shack, the chances of Mabel or anyone else finding him were probably very slim. He didn't recognise this part of the forest and he'd never set foot in the woods alone before. He tried calling out for help but this soon proved to be a useless expulsion of much-needed energy. Nobody heard him anyway. So instead he took to walking in one direction, which paid of quickly when he came to a path and found a signpost detailing what lay ahead according to which direction he took.

Left led to the waterfall and right… That was obscured with graffiti. The words _"Robbie V was here"_ covered the sign, leaving Dipper with the difficult decision of whether to head towards the waterfall, which he had visited before with Wendy and his sister and could probably find his own way back to the Mystery Shack from, or whether to steer away from his original goal and find out what Robbie's graffiti was hiding. His headache intensified, serving as a reminder of his real aim. He needed to get back to the Mystery Shack. He needed to get back to his family - to Mabel. Whatever was underneath Robbie's graffiti could wait another day.

As it turned out, he definitely made the right decision. Even before he reached the waterfall, he could see his sister and her two friends sitting by the river bank, gathered around a picnic blanket, laughing and joking about God knows what.

"Mabel!" he shouted, waving at her from along the path. "Mabel!" he repeated, but it took a few shouts before anyone noticed him, and in the end it was Candy who realised he was there.

This was one of the rare moments when Dipper was really, _really_ happy to see his sister (and her two friends). They were as close as two siblings could be but sometimes - especially over the last week - she could be somewhat annoying. The walk down the pathway hadn't been quite as bad as waking up in the clearing without a clue where he was, but as he walked he frequently caught glimpses of something lurking in the bushes beside him, and he was glad now to know that he wasn't alone with whatever it was that had been following him.

Nodding quickly at Grenda and Candy in acknowledgement, he grabbed Mabel by the arm and pulled her over to one side, eager to explain to her everything that had happened - from his dream about Bill to waking up with no memory of that morning, and even to the glimpses of bright yellow he'd seen every so often as he walked along the path to the waterfall. And yet she resisted, chastising him for being so impatient despite not having a clue what he was so impatient about. She started asking him what was going on, but he interrupted her immediately, telling her to wait for a moment whilst he looked for a particular page in the journal. Over the sound of his fingers brushing against the pages, Dipper heard his sister sigh at his obsession with the book. Normally he would have responded in some way, perhaps with a sarcastic remark or two, but this time he had more important things to concentrate on.

"Listen, Mabel, something happened last night - and today - and I…" he trailed off, the sight of his fingers flipping through the pages becoming a blur as he realised that the page he was so desperately searching for was nowhere to be found. "I can't find the page," he gasped, having to resort to taking deep breaths to soothe himself. Mabel was clearly losing interest fast; she rolled her eyes and turned to walk away. Dipper had to grip her arm again to stop her from leaving. "It's… It's gotta be here somewhere. Just wait, okay? Just give me a moment."

"Dipper, what's going on?" Her usually constantly present smile was fading, replaced by a frown accompanied by a pair of strangely sad eyes. "I know you love that journal, but it's like you're… obsessed."

"I had a dream." He snapped the book shut, returning it to his backpack for the time being. "Last night, I…" Halfway through his sentence, he changed his mind. That wasn't the right way to start explaining it. "There's this dream demon - Bill, Bill Cipher. I read about him in the journal this morning and last night… Last night, I met him." He eyed Mabel carefully, checking to make sure she was following. She appeared to be deep in thought - a rare sight, he noted. "He offered to introduce me to "other people like me" or something. Anyway, in the journal it says he's dangerous and never to summon him."

This is when he started pacing. He noticed Mabel and her friends share a worried glance but that wasn't enough to convince him to stop and calm down. "And then today," he continued, dragging his sister even further away from her friends in case they heard him. "I woke up here… Well, not _here_ , but in the forest - in a part of the forest I've never seen before… and I have no idea how I got here. I just… I don't know."

When he finally stopped rambling, Mabel put her arm around him and assured him he wasn't going crazy - at least by her standards, which didn't really offer Dipper any sort of comfort except for the fact that she was trying her best, just like she always was. He waited with the three of them while they finished their girly chats and gossiping before eventually convincing Mabel that he needed to get back to the Mystery Shack. At the time, he really believed he did. But once he dragged his feet up to the attic, intending to try and relax and reflect on the events following his dream involving Bill, the prominent crack in the triangular window that looked as if it might shatter at any moment made him think twice.


End file.
